Overview - "What is this Offroad Racing stuff anyway?"

If you've ever wanted to get into motor sport, then offroading is probably the easiest and cheapest means available.  This is due to the ability of the sport to cater for everything from the budding novice to the full-blown professional.

Building an offroad car is a great expedition into the unknown, especially if you deviate from the manufacturer's specifications, in terms of suspension and engine components; which you'll want to as most cars are built to a price, meaning inferior components or simply designs that can't take the knocks.

As far as I can tell there are probably four ways you can acquire an offroad car:

• Buy a production vehicle and bolt in a roll cage and fire-extinguisher.
• Buy a production vehicle and bolt in a roll cage, fire-extinguisher and a completely different engine, drive train and suspension package.
• Build a kit buggy or get one built for you.
• Build your own buggy completely from scratch.

The first two (and possibly the third) are within reach of the average Joe.  The fourth is definitely left to those of you out there who work in metal fabrication shops and have access to bucket loads of information on engine drive train combinations, suspension packages, lots of time and even more money.

A fifth option does exist; buy a car/buggy someone else is selling.   These are usually the result of someone upgrading or leaving the sport, and good deals can usually be made.  Just be careful, as some of these cars/buggies will be on their last legs.

There are four major factors that dictate how fast/competitive you are:

• Power to weight ratio.
• Suspension setup.
• Braking ability.
• Traction.

The obvious thing to do is strip everything you can off your car, drop in the most powerful motor you can find, slap on the biggest brakes, beef up the suspension and bolt on some knobblies.  Ah, if only it were a perfect world...

Everything you modify on a car affects how the car will handle.  If you drop in a big motor the front end will seek out every rut and bump no matter how tiny, the car will have a tendency to understeer (due to the additional weight up front) and the back-end will skip around like a roo on steroids (unlike the 'datto on steroids' below that never seems to touch the ground).

The solution to this dilemma is either good planning, mates-in-the-know or the tried-and-true trial and error method.  We "chose" the latter.

There are a lot of things to plan when building up an offroad car. The following pages are just a small percentage of the thought and effort that goes into building any sort of race car.  I'm no expert on the subject and some people think I have a tendency to over-engineer things; so take everything you read with a grain of salt.  What I've tried to do is point out the topics that have either caught us out or caused us some problem (whether it be during a race or on the shop floor).  If you have a serious problem with something I've suggested then either email me (if you can find the link), or just put it down to me being another crazy-person on the web and move on.

As a first suggestion, I'd start by saying that a large workshop is not a luxury item.  For any of you that have tried to work on a car in a single car garage, you'll get the general idea.  With a large area to work in, it's easier to work on the car, find parts that have been taken off the car and find the tools you used.  We currently have access to a factory shed and it's wonderful (except for all the building material...).

Secondly, don't try to do too much at the one time.  The car has missed several races simply because it was in pieces on the factory floor.  An easy brake pad change can turn into an upgrade of the entire back-end (I kid you not!).